Listed Building: HMS NELSON; BUILDING NUMBER 58 (1245373)

Alternatively known as: The Customs House, Building No.58, GUNWHARF ROAD HMS VERNON Naval ordnance office. Late C18 with later additions. Patterned red brick with grey headers in Flemish bond; Portland dressings; gauged bright-red brick flat arches. Hipped Welsh slate roof. Late Georgian style. PLAN: T-shaped, partly infilled to rear, with single-depth offices off an axial corridor. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; 15 x 3 bays. An ashlar plinth and plat band; stepped dentilled eaves cornice below coped parapet; 6/6-pane sashes in reveals with stone sills, central 3-bay break below pediment having double 6-panel door with overlight up flight of 3 stone steps with iron railings (overlight now boarded up but formerly recorded as containing panel with gilded rope surround); stone panel in pediment, formerly recorded as containing gilded and painted Royal coat of arms in rope surround (wooden). Rear: central stair bay projects with later infill either side, with grey headers, round-arched entrance and window above, and 2 segmental-arched openings to ground-floor left with 9/9-pane sashes above. The main range has round-arched recesses on 1st floor containing oculi, only 2 of which survive (on right side, with glazing bars). Right return: oculi with glazing bars, that on right replaced by window. Left return: on each floor a central window flanked by oculi, that on ground floor left now a window. INTERIOR: has much of its original fittings including 6-panel doors with butt-beaded outer panels, chair rails, a partly rebuilt central Imperial stair in the rear projection with round-arched doorways off, and double doors to the principal main central first-floor room. HISTORY: the offices controlled the storage and issue of armaments and ordnance stores to naval ships. It is the only significant survival from the original Gun Wharf Yard, apart from the former entrance (qv), and similar to the 17705 office at Priddy's Hard (qv). As such this forms part of the very significant historic dockyard complex at Portsmouth, as well as being an important Georgian office building. (Sources: Coad JG: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 180-181, 257). Selected Sources Books and journals Coad, J G, The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Architecture and Engineering Works of the Sailing Navy, (1989), 180-181 Coad, J G, The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Architecture and Engineering Works of the Sailing Navy, (1989), 257